|
| | Since the matter came up incidentally in the comments section I thought I d try to list all the names we assigned to people on the storied Gettysburg College campus (I ll rely on grm and bp to fill in the gaps):
Silly Dork Boy
Perpetually Drunk Guy
Disporportionate Chick
Blinders Guy
Pubic Beard Boy
Toad Boy
The Crane (aka The Goddess)
Chad II
Chad III
Little Danny Death
Twiggy (sporadically used to mock Mugabi up until his death)
Fish Boy
The Brain
Commie G
Damn. I know there s more, but I m drawing a blank. This of course excludes names we had for each other (ie bampf) and names that weren t exactly campus bound (ie Red Rope Licorice). Additions? Help me out guys.
-bampf
| | | A while back I promised to try to post a bunch of lists. So far I have failed you all. Dealing with the shame is tearing me apart, so I decided to get to work. Here s a biggie. Favorite cartoons! As well all know all the best TV is animated... that cannot be disputed. However how you rank the best cartoons can... and will. So here s mine:
30. Chip and Dale s Rescue Rangers This wasn t a great cartoon, but I watched an awful lot of it in between lazy college afternoon naps. I still know the theme song by heart.
29. Mission Hill One of the many Adult Swim entries. Funny cartoon with subject matter that covers a disturbing range of topics.
28. Dr. Katz I really enjoyed this cartoon during it s run on Comedy Central. The show tried to emphasize the interactions with celebrities, while I thought that the best part of the show was the rapport between Dr. Katz and his son.
27. Darkwing Duck Darkwing Duck was worth it just for his new weekly appellation... "I am the terror that flaps in the night, I am the peanut butter that sticks to the roof of your mouth!"
26. Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures It made me sad that this brilliant Ralph Bakshi take on an old classic only lasted a couple of seasons... it was amazingly off the wall funny, which eventually spelled its doom... its strong cult adult following was worthless in a Satrday morning kid-centric target market.
25. Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law Another amazing Adult Swim toon. The great thing about Harvey Birdman is it doesn t give old characters new personas (a la Space Ghost, Brak) but instead explores all the seedy nuances of the original characters.
24. Ghostbusters This show was staggeringly popular while I was in middle school... I remember desperately wanting to be Egon.
23. He-man and the Masters of the Universe Despite the shows many flaws(horrible over-use of stock animations, the Clark Kent syndrome ie no one noticing that Prince Adam and He-Man looked exactly the same, etc) I still watched the show regularly. I suppose it was the weird combo of futuristic and fantasy themes that engrossed me so... that and Man-At-Arms was a bad ass mofo.
22. The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley I loved this cartoon. Way too odd ball to last, but it was fun while it lasted... the cartoon was actually a lot funnier than the original SNL skit... "I must say".
21. Duck Tales Know this theme song by heart too... Duck Takes! Woo-Ew!
20. Thundarr the Barbarian One of the earliest Saturday morning cartoons I remember falling in love with... again the appeal was probably more the setting than the show itself. Thundarr had a really cool sword and Ookla a really cool horse thing. Plus there was the added bonus of portenting the destruction of the earth in... 1994.
19. King of the Hill I really hated Beavis and Butthead, so I tried to resist this show for as long as I could... eventually I caved. It was just too good. Dale and Boomhauer alone make the show worth watching.
18. Rocko s Modern Life This was a great cartoon on Nick. Rocko was a hapless Kangaroo (with a vaguely Australian accent) who worked in comic book store and who best friend was a cow. It was near surreal and always hysterical.
17. Tiny Toon Adventures This was the highlight of many a lazy college afternoon. Far superior to its Warner Bros twin, Animaniacs. Witty references, clever puns, and They Might Be Giants... good stuff.
16. Thundercats Thundercats was a great action cartoon... the animation was superb for its time and genre. I also remember it being one of the first weekday afternoon cartoons I watched... when you were 10, not having to wait for Saturday to watch cartoons was like a celestial gift handed to you by God Himself. Oh yeah. It s true.
15. South Park Talk about ground breaking. Seems every show a new taboo is whimsically addressed. I have no idea how the majority of the episodes ever got past the sensors. But I m glad they did.
14. Transformers I m not sure if the obsession started with the toys and carried over to the cartoons or vice versa... either way Transformers rocked!
13. Dungeons and Dragons Another great Saturday morning cartoon. We loved D&D and would fight every recess over who got to be Bobby (the Barbarian) and who got to be Hank (the Ranger). No one ever wanted to be the stupid cavalier (remember, the guy with just a shield... why did he never pick up a friggin weapon? Why, God, why?). Anyway, the seeds of a life-long D&D obsession had rooted themselves in my maleable brain.
12. Power Puff Girls This show is what sold me on Cartoon Network. PPG is one of those rare shows that works on two entirely different levels... one to the amusement of kids and the second to the delight of adults. Its consistently brilliant writing has brought us one of the all time great villians- MoJo JoJo as well as homages to The Big Lebowski, South Park and many others.
11. The Critic Absurdly funny show. No icon was safe. The highlight of the show though had to be Franklin Sherman, Jay s lunatic upperclass twit father:
Franklin: "All these years of support and I ve never asked the Republican Party for anything."
George H. Bush: "You asked to be made Secratary of Balloon Doggies."
Franklin: "I didn t ask to be Secratary of Balloon Doggies, the balloon doggies demanded it!"
10. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Speaking of absurdly funny... 15 minutes of non-stop laughter. The show is so disjointed and pointless, yet it works on so many levels. Every character is brilliant. You really have to see every episode a couple of times as you always miss jokes due to the overwhelming peels of laughter.
9. SeaLab 2021 Again, disturbingly funny. I ve made comments about SeaLab before. I m certain the writers for SeaLab do a lot of drugs... I mean a lot of drugs.
8. The Tick The Tick comic has always been wonderful and the cartoon was a pretty faithful reproduction. The cast of characters really made the show too... Sewer Urchin, the Evil Midnight Bomber, Die Flatermaus etc. And of course the Tick himself was always profound - "One does not eat crackers in the bed of one s destiny, lest one gets all... scratchy."
7. Samurai Jack I ve espoused the wonders of Samurai Jack numerous times, so I won t belabour the point except to say the style and art direction of this show may be the greatest of any program ever.
6. Invader Zim Jhonen Vasquez is a god. We all know that. We all accept it. I just wanna know why Nick cancelled the show despite the hordes of loyal fans and success of Zim based merchandise. Guess it wasn t appealing to their target audience. Hurrumph.
5. Home Movies This is the best of the newer Adult Swims. Not as absurd and over the top as Aqua Teen or SeaLab, but the dialog and exchanges between characters are so incredibly well done. It s the same people that did Dr. Katz, but with a focus on the brilliant (aforementioned) dialog. Great stuff, and Coach McGurk is the icing on the cake.
4. Space Ghost Coast to Coast Of course Space Ghost started it all. Without SGC2C Adult Swim would never have existed. It was a pure stroke of genius that led to the creation of the show, spawning a whole new genre of cartoons. I remember the summer we discovered Space Ghost... we worshipped the show like our new found god. It was great.
3. GI Joe: The Real American Hero I couldn t even begin to estimate the number of days I raced off the school bus to the TV for fear of missing a minute of GI Joe. GI Joe was the be all and end all of cartoons when I was a kid. We ate slept and breathed Joe. If you think I m kidding, say the phrase "Well now I know" around any roughly Gen X aged male, and you will always, without fail get, "And knowing is half the battle" in response. It s like some secret handshake a whole generation of TV raised men share. A true icon of the 80s. Yo Joe, man. Yo Jo.
2. Family Guy Another truly brilliant cartoon. The depth and scope of the this show was amazing-- movie parodies, pop icon deconstructions, self deprecation, cultural interspection, and just plain absurdism-- it had it all. Twas a sad day indeed when Rupert Murdoch and his army of evil imps cancelled the show. Thankfully I ve been able to downloaded a ton of episodes off of the internet so the sublime genius of the show can be perserved digitally for posterity.
1. The Simpsons Was there ever any question? Easily the best television show of all time. No show has ever done it as well or as long as the The Simpson s have, and none probably ever will. The quotes, the characters, the pure genius. I don t think I have to go any further... Matt Groening is our messiah.
Well, that s it. Awfully long I know (representing three days of work) but for a subject so near and dear to my heart I felt it appropriate. Let me know what you guys think. There s probably some greats that I m missing.
-bampf | | | So I m reading CNN, and I see the British Royal Scots Dragoon Guards destroyed a bunch of Iraqi tanks. Royal Scots Dragoon Guard? How cool is that? How come the Brits get all the really cool names for their military units and the best we can come up with is Screaming Eagles or something equally lame. Weak. Real weak.
We need a new military naming campaign. If nothing else it could booster recruitment numbers. I d be much more keen to enlist if I could join The Iron Fist Harbingers of Doom or something instead of say, the 61st Infantry. Anyone else agree?
-bampf | | 3/26/2003 3:25:48 PM No time for post, Dr. Jones | Add Comment |
| This whole being exceedingly busy at work thing is really cutting into my BampfBlog(tm) time. Pity, that. And of course the evenings are filled with PS2 playing... assuming I m able to wrest control of the console from Kristyn who s logged close to 40 hours of Jak and Daxter since Sunday night... apparently she s trying to make up for a console-less childhood in a couple of day s time... foregoing sleep, food, and bathing. Sad really.
Just sad.
-bampf | | | This weekend was madness. Pure and unadulterated madness. Friday I outran the Philly Friday Rush Hour traffic (which is a beast horrible beyond description) to make Friday night Magic draft at the Guild. Then some more drafting and tasty vittles at Angies afterwards... mmmm... sweet sweet Angies. I finally made it to Ship at around 2:00.
Saturday was Red Wolves... with lots of armoured fighting, tasty food, and other asorted revelry. It was fun to strap on the armour again. Krey and I had a monumental mace and shield fight. It was one of those deals where we both were going entirely all out... absolute clash of the titans... the earth trembled in fear. Good stuff. Good time all day and night... I hope the wedding planning/madness allows us to attend a lot of SCA events this year...
Sunday was an all day D&D session, as I ran the inaguaral adventure of my new campaign. It was great to game again. I think I ve developed a pretty detailed and interesting campaign world. We ll see how it all plays out. In any case it was a nice long session with much excitement over the wholly new characters and environs. Kristyn made a nice assortment of tasty foods to keep us sated for the day.
Anyway, I had a great time all three days with three different groups of friends. Doesn t get much better than that. We arrived home around midnight Sunday, despite the onset of exhaustion we decided there was enough time to hook up the PS2 and briefly try a couple of games. Cool. I know what I ll be doing this evening (and every evening for at least a couple of weeks).
Well, anyway, back to work.
-bampf | | | I think it s friggin fantastic when these peace demonstrations erupt with violence. The irony of it all is near overwelming.
Didn t all these mindless automatons make the same complaints before the last Gulf War and before Afganistan... and the net result of both those conflicts: a clearly bettered world and the liberation of oppressed peoples.
What s it gonna take to get these sheep to accept that yes, indeed, violence does solve things. Sheesh. Not like there s a dearth of history books in this country... pick one up people (and some deodorant while yer at, ya stinkin hippie).
-b | | | ...check out the new war themed poll. Voice your opinion.
-b | | | Boosting CNN s ratings... that s one for sure. I ve had CNN on in the background at home pretty much nonstop since yesterday evening. I d forgotten just how cool war is. Exciting shit. Anyone who disagrees with the whole war = cool thing is just plain wrong. Sure some Americans will die, but they re in the military... hello... that s their job.
I m actually looking forward to getting home and watching TV... that never ever happens. I m still wagering the whole thing won t last more than a couple of weeks... akin to what happened in Afganistan where once the full weight of the US military is thrown against the enemy the bulk of them will crumble and then it just becomes a matter of rooting out the few small enclaves of fanatics who don t know when they re conquored (I d quote the line from Gladiator if I could remember it verbatim).
So anyway... turn on CNN (or MSNBC or whatever) and enjoy the show... you only get this kinda entertainment once every ten years or so.
-b | | | Alright, the Edogg may be the only person who follows me here, but... while watching Children of Dune, I couldn t help but envision a giant black cock in Gurney Halleck s hand as he viciously stabbed Muad Dib s murderer. Anyone else have that problem?
Good mini-series by the way. Check out the encore presentations on SciFi if ya get a chance. Very impressive for an undoubtedly limited SciFi channel budget.
-b | | | To quote a favorite orky mantra:
"Ere we go! Ere we go! Ere we go!"
Looks like war is really right around the corner. From all quarters it s being made clear that it is a foregone conclusion. We re going in. I m certainly OK with that. Maybe finally there ll be something intersting on prime time TV as we can all watch the bombs drop on CNN every night.
Exciting shit.
We ll just have to wait and see what the fall out results in... increased arab hostility? More terror attacks? Bio-chemical agents? I suppose any one of these would be possible. I m inclined to beleive the more likely outcome will be Saddam s head on a pike outside Bahgdad in a couple of weeks and rejoicing Iraqi kissing GIs in the streets... making all the hard line islamists (and the lousy dirty stinking French) look like further morons and life will go on pretty much as before until the next crack pot dictator rears his head in the international community.
That s my take.... oh yeah, and the stock market will rebound... wouldn t that be nice?
-bampf | | | You guessed it, I m on my own again this week. Yesterday I took Kristyn to the train station and shipped her back to Ship so she could have her follow-up dental procedure. So I have another week of manliness at the house. I m looking forward to some more quality time in the man hole. I also have lots of work to do on my next D&D campaign. Plus a considerable amount of time will be spent watching the new SciFi Dune mini series.
I do have a refridgerator full of leftovers, so there may be no can-o-corn dinners, although I picked up an 8 pack at BJs on Saturday just in case. It s hard to resist the sweet allure of the corn.
I want to devote a sizable block of time this week to writing a VB application. For all you gamer junkies out there, Wizards has made public what they re calling the System Reference Document (dig arouund Wizards.com for details). It s essentially ALL the rules/charts/tables from ALL the core d20 books. In this day of big corporations declaring witch hunts against file sharing, I think that s an amazingly cool thing to do.
People have already begun converting the contents of System Reference Documents into various formats, including databases. So what the screams to me is Super Easy API! So my plan is to create an app to help me write my D&D adventures... something to expediate creature/NPC generation. I know it s an exceedingly dorky thing to do, but in the long run I think it could save me a lot of time.
Maybe with some help I could even market it... ya never know. In any case it ll be an amusing distraction (at least until the PS2 arrives).
Oh, and one other thing: Happy Saint Pattys to all you Irish blokes. I m wearing green pants today (a mere coincidence, I m never cognizant of the date whilst blearily dressing myself in the morning) and maybe I ll play some Black 47 and watch Boondock Saints tonight in celebration.
bampf | | | Josh (aka Svengar) sent me this yesterday, and it seemed so apropos that I felt the need to share.
On France...
The French
"I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me."
--- General George S. Patton
"Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion."
--Norman Schwartzkopf
"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it."
---- Marge Simpson
"You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn't have the face for it."
---John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona
"You know why the French don't want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is French, people."
--Conan O'Brien
"I don't know why people are surprised that France won't help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn't help us get the Germans out of France!"
---Jay Leno
"The last time the French asked for 'more proof' it came marching into Paris under a German flag."
--David Letterman
Good stuff. I may need to stick one or two of these into my Quote of the Day rotation. I especially like the Schwartzkopf one.
-bampf
| | | We re getting a Playstation 2 in the coming weeks so I ve been scouring eBay and other internet sources for games. I ve already purchased a few good ones and am trying to get at least one game from all my favorite genres (fighter, RPG, football, strategy etc) excepting the FPS genre which has no place outside the realm of the PC.
Anyway, I m trying to find a good RPG... reading reviews, scanning gaming sites... why is it that every friggin RPG console game is done in the anime style? I m gonna say it now (and the Edogg may never forgive me), japanime style animation sucks. It really is. It s terrible. The disporportionate features, the spiky hair, all the horrible cliches, the whole lot. Terrible. And it pisses me off. The other issue I m having is the Final Fantasy effect... I m sure it s a great series and all but it s effect on the genre is completely disheartening. Thanks to FF every character has to have a super mega special power attack with an accompanying 15 second cut scene (typically the attack involves dropping a mountain on an enemy, or raining down meteors, or a Hiroshima-sized mushroom clouded explosion... all actual moves mind you)... what ever happened to the old fashioned D&D clones where you swung a sword or fired and arrow? The highlight of a battle would be 1 or 2 fireballs launched by the wizard. That s what I want... substance over glitz for a change... I know it s unheard of in this day and age, but that s what I want. Is that too much to ask?
Well, enough ranting. For you console gamers that are reading feel free to make suggestions. Oh, and before anyone starts arguing the merits of one console over another, if I had my choice I d have gotten and XBox, but I m getting a new PS2 for very cheap, so I m not gonna argue.
-bampf
PS Sorry, Edogg... it had to be said. | | | Oh ain t it grand. Hatred of the French is at an all time high! Just read on cnn that in DC the House cafeteria has officially removed the "French" in French fries and French toast. How cool is that? I m all for an invasion of France right after we finish up in Iraq... I mean we ll have so many troops deployed near by... why not? Show those cheese eating surrender monkeys a thing or two about America.
Reminds me of Scorpio:
"By the way, Homer, what s your least favorite country: Italy or France?"
"France."
"Heh heh, no one ever says Italy."
Death to the Frogs! Now there s a war slogan I can really get behind.
-bampf | | | So I m sitting at my desk drinking a cup of Earl Grey tea and eating a peppermint patty from the snack cart (which is positioned not more than six feet from my desk, incidentally) and the overall effect was like a rich mint tea. Mmmm. Don t know why, but this made me very happy.
Maybe I m just happy it s Friday afternoon.
-b | | | Yeah, my reign over the household is fleating. Tonight is my last night alone. Seems like I really didn t take full advantage of the situation. I played some Madden, played some Medal of Honor (for the first time in a while)... but not a whole lot of either. I did a good bit of website work. I wanted to start some development projects of my own... but alas they still exist only in theory in my mind. Best laid plans of mice and men...
I ll look forward to another man-week at the house, but for the time being I m looking forward even more to being reunited with mah baby. Yeah, I know... sappy. Truth though.
-bampf | | | For the tech savvy readers, assuming you care, here s why my first two weeks or so at Liquent were so crazed:
Render Perfect 1.1
Press release for our software. For those who are wondering what it is the company/software does, this ll give a vague idea.
If you re not interested... I don t blame you.
-b | | | Because it has come up in the comments section and I get asked about it from time to time, on my site, omitting apostrophes is not only accepted but considered high art. I don t expect others to do it, but I forsook (yeah it s right, I looked it up) them long ago. It s not really a brevity thing as I don t use other popular web shortcuts (u for you or ppl et al). Long ago I just decided they were superfluous. Maybe it was a bit of a stylistic decision as well, but in any case I just don t use em, not here, not on the Guild site, not in emails to my boss, nowhere really (well, maybe in software text/dialogs being shipped to a client, but that s about it). So there. If e e cummings can have artistic license with the english language, so can I.
There. That settles that.
-b
| | | I promised a play review, so here goes.
Friday Kristyn and I took in LVC s production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, directed by our very own The Huy. Overall I thought the production was very good. I had never seen or read the play before, so I went in with no real expectations about the source material. I had seen the school s production of A Midsummer Night s Dream a number of months earlier. I thought that was nicely done, despite it being one of my least favorite Shakespearean pieces, although there were a few glaringly weak performances so I expected about the same quality (a bit sub-Gettysburg, where I ve seen numerous college productions). Anyway, on to the detailed review:
The Wanderer and wife were there as well and we talked with The Huy before the show. We asked if he was gonna make a Hitchcock/M. Night-esque cameo appearance during the production. He said no, but he does give a little pre-amble monologue intro thing. Kristyn asked him to use the word 'thespians' in his speech, and sure enough he worked it in seemlessly... much to the delight of Kristyn. A good start.
The good start was quickly followed by what I thought was the low point of the show... the introductory music. The pit orchestra was downright awful. I recall wincing no less than 4 times as chords jarringly missed their marks. I m certainly not a music guy... I couldn t play an instrument or decipher sheet music if my life depended on it so I m not gonna give an in depth critique... I just know it was bad. I looked at Kristyn quizzically (as she definately IS a music person, able to play numerous instruments very well) and she too was horrified, roundly stating that the music was unacceptable for a middle school band, let alone a college one. What s even scarier was a quick scan of the program revealed a number of the pit are music/performance majors... lucky for them McDonald s is always hiring.
Anyway, this nadir was pretty short lived, as the production started in earnest. The lead character was exceptionally well acted. An enormous amount of charisma coupled with an excellent stage presence makes for a superb lead (he was also equally good in Midsummer Night s Dream). The overall acting was much more solid this time round, with no real glaring weaknesses. The main characters were especially well done. Kudos to them (I m sure The Huy s direction helped a lot here). The songs were well sung and really compensated for the sub-par music.
The casting was excellent (and much better than MidSummer Night), so that s probably another tip of the hat to The Huy. The jokes were delivered very well... both the subtle ones and the more obvious physical humour. I thought the self-parodying aspects of the play were very amusing and played out well. There were lots of little cool elements The Huy (and his staff) added... a breif cut to slow motion, a kung-fu action sequence, etc that went over nicely all the while straddling but rarely crossing that fine line of being too over the top. Nicely done.
The only other weakness I could think of was a bit of dance choreography... none of the courtesans could dance, which made for An unintentionally amusing seduction scene. No biggie there, though. So, all in all, I was very entertained. Great job by The Huy... who I think is probably a better director than actor (not sure if that s an insult or compliment or both... we ll see what he says).
Play critic mode off.
-bampf | | |
I got business cards today! How sweet is that? I ve never actually had a real business card before. I find the whole thing pretty exciting. My previous two employers were unabashedly too cheap to buy business cards for their peon employees (creating that ever-so-popular and oh-so-good-for-business us/them dichotomy). Not so here at Liquent. They really seem to care about ther employees... imagine that.
-b | | | And of course, that can only mean one thing: I m on my own this week. Yup, all of our house has been designated Man Land as Kristyn is in Ship this week having a fun filled root canal.
Kristyn and I have had more than a our fair share of time apart since we ve been together, so being apart sucks... but on the other hand, this is the first time I ll have had any real time by my self in our house. So that s kinda cool. There will be much quality bonding with my PC. Oh yeah.
Of course, no kick ass gourmet/Foodtv meals for me this week. I ll have to fend for myself... granted I used to do that all of the time, but Kristyn has all but banished me from the stove in the time we ve been together so there may be a period of adjustment. I ve planned a Can-o-Corn dinner for tonight, if that goes well, I ll aim for something more elaborate later in the week.
Got a bunch more to talk about today, so look for more posts. I promised a review of The Huy s play, plus after an eventful Sunday at the Guild I wanted to make some comments about that.
On another unrelated note, I ll urge everyone to check out the new and improved TheRupps blog... which isn t really a blog any more, as Mr. Dover has converted it into a pretty sweet forum. So check it out... it s a possibility I could steal the code from Dover (we have a long history of sharing source code) and implement a Bampf forum section.
Well enough for now, check back later for more.
-bampf |
|